Army claims budget cuts put it at 'high risk'

Army claims budget cuts put it at 'high risk'
USA Today
By Tom Vanden Brook
October 17, 2013

WASHINGTON — Budget reductions could render the Army at “high risk to meet even one major war,” according to documents obtained by USA Today, a warning the Army is sounding because it sees another war as inevitable before long.

The dire assessment by top Army officials to Pentagon leaders provides a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes struggle for the future of the military in a time of declining budgets.

The Army provided its assessment as each of the services is conducting its four-year scrub of its strategy and the resources needed to meet it, a process called the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Top Army officials late last month briefed Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on the Army’s future and the risks associated with cutting its forces. The presentation’s slides draw dire conclusions about reducing the Army’s size beyond the 490,000 active-duty soldiers — down from a war-time high of 570,000 — it plans to have in 2017.

An Army with 450,000 soldiers is “too small” and at “high risk to meet one major war.” The bottom line on one slide reads, “Extremely High Risk in Meeting Even One Major Combat Operation.” The Pentagon has been structured for decades to win two separate wars.

And war will likely break out again, according to the briefing. “History says the Army will fight again ... much sooner than we think.” At 420,000 active-duty soldiers, the Army “cannot execute (Defense Strategic Guidance).”
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